Great detective work. I wonder if there'll be a video show during the group meeting

There are 6* departments. iirc it means that the department was rated 5* in the two most recent RAEs.

Have you tried looking for 'split site' phds? I just put split site chemistry phd into google and saw a few options worth exploring.

arrghhh data loss nightmare!! To be honest, I'm a bit paranoid when it comes to backing up. In addition to the Mac's regular backups to both Time Machine and .mac, I use a subversion server for any PhD-related files, which I then back up off-site.

I dread to think how many backups I'll have when I'm a bit further in and [hopefully] have something worth losing

I'm just starting out, but I like to have everything on my Mac. I use some writing software called Scrivener to write notes as I'm reading, and store all my references and PDFs in Bookends. I also carry a hardback A5 notebook for scribbling anything I think of when I'm away from the computer, but I really try not to have anything on loose leaf paper. I don't mind if that means the notebook ends up full of rubbish, because that's probably an accurate reflection of my thoughts at this point

I have the same problem with tea drinking ... nothing a scale and polish can't fix